ano hitomi
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Edward stands before the scrutinizing eyes of the Colonel...


disclaimer: full metal alchemist does not belong to me.  
  
Ano hitomi. (Those eyes.)  
  
By miyamoto yui  
  
The windows were opened today, but I felt like I couldn't breathe. My collar was becoming like the noose of a rope to hang me. I wasn't supposed to feel shame or guilt for being lectured for the umpteenth time, but why was this any different?  
  
I didn't do anything this time. He just asked me to come here of my own free will.  
  
It was not like he asked me to come to his bedroom. No, it was the familiar office with that desk right between us. I wanted to pound on it as if it were an extension of his body, making him want to hurt more and badly than I could ever feel.  
  
It wasn't fair. He just wasn't fair.  
  
And I wasn't going to lose anymore from him than I already did.  
  
What did it mean to have equivalent trade, anyway? What was I supposed to know back then when I felt like I could do anything? In that house that Al and I burned, everything was left behind, wasn't it?  
  
But he wouldn't let me forget.  
  
Was I supposed to take things so lightly and let them fade when I felt that they were unnecessary? My gloves were now in tight fists. I wanted to hold onto something.  
  
To anything…  
  
I didn't know.  
  
I didn't want to know what it meant to lose myself more than I'd already lost in the first place.  
  
If I had a choice, then what would that truly mean?  
  
Life was about decisions. Not about the choices one could make.  
  
But still, he looked down at me with those eyes that wouldn't stop thrusting into me. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to look up with my defiant golden eyes, but I didn't want to appear selfish or childish, more than I already seemed.   
  
And even that, I was losing. I was losing the luster that made me drive forward. The sparkle was fading as the seconds passed, but with him, they were depleting even faster.  
  
After all, what did you do with a person who looked like a kid but knew more than a thirty-year-old? What did you do with a person who wanted to stain their humanity? Well, that's assuming that I had any left.  
  
I was a dog. I was a dog of the government.   
  
And what was I supposed to do with Al? Hmm? What was I supposed to tell my brother when he didn't even have his body? I wanted him to forgive me? But I couldn't even forgive myself for this feat. I took him away from himself.   
  
_I_ did it. ORE.  
  
I, the most important person he knew. The one he looked up to.  
  
I was the one who took him away bit by bit even though he would never cry that in front of me.  
  
And yet, these eyes were burning like his combustible hands. He was staring down at me.  
  
I couldn't imagine him looking at me in any other way, though. I didn't think he knew what I meant to him and nor did he understand himself towards me.  
  
So, the natural reaction was to fear me. To use me as a tool.  
  
Maybe he saw something he loved and hated about me.  
  
Regardless of his feelings, he had used me. He tried to take a lot of things. Little by little, I found myself becoming the very thing I was fighting against. What did you say to yourself when you became the enemy?  
  
How could you live with the face that you were stuck with and reflected back on any smooth surface?  
  
What the hell did you say when you became the enemy to yourself and to everyone else around you?  
  
Did this make sense to you?  
  
It certainly doesn't in my opinion, but what was this crap about equivalent trade in this case?  
  
I'd learned to live with those eyes staring down at me. There was no love and nor was there any hate. They just existed to push me to my full limit, whether I liked it or not.  
  
He calculated everything as if I were a math puzzle. Ah, wasn't it ironic that I compared myself to a theory of math?   
  
An alchemist, he will always be. And therefore he will use me as one.  
  
But I didn't want to be there in his eyes.  
  
I didn't want to be anywhere in his sphere of influence. I didn't want him caring at all for me, but gravity made you do some strange things…  
  
I didn't want to become the person he wanted me to be. I didn't know if it was because I didn't have the choice to pick it for myself or was that because he chose it for me? I couldn't understand which was more condescending. Which was more hateful.  
  
I couldn't cry. There was nothing in equivalent trade for that either.  
  
Pain or happiness could never be quantified.  
  
What did it mean? What did my hands mean? Or rather, what did the bionic arm and the real, human flesh of a hand mean when I touched the ground? What did it mean when he showed me he was a flame alchemist?  
  
Did it mean that I would burn in hell for taking the role of God?  
  
No, I didn't want it.  
  
But I was being pushed there. Slowly…but surely.  
  
He wanted me there.  
  
I wondered if he worshipped me deep down…  
  
What did it mean that I was paying attention and that I was listening to the people? I AM one of the people? What did it mean that 'you' weren't one of them AFTER the war? You didn't die, did you? Or DID you?  
  
Whether you kill, cheat, or hug anyone, they become your responsibility. That is the price you pay for being born. You have to be weary and protect everyone. Even if you don't like it.  
  
You have to protect them. You have to protect yourself. Now, the question is, who is more important?  
  
By trying to put myself with the people, did that mean that I was going against what I was looking for? Did that mean that I was going against myself and all that I stood for?   
  
That's absurd!  
  
But it made perfect sense when I drew out this conclusion in my mixed up head.  
  
I wanted to touch that white collar and get it dirty. I wanted to pull it and tell him the injustice even though he knew it was there.  
  
What was cruelty when you couldn't understand it from the other end?  
  
What was this talk of freedom and information when you couldn't use it? We were not the selected few. Whomever chose us, it was not because of our abilities, but our love to go beyond the potential given to us.  
  
THAT'S why we were chosen. We chose ourselves.  
  
And yet he couldn't understand.  
  
No matter how warm or cold I was to him, he made me come back.  
  
For we shared this twisted bond. The sado-masochist affection that ran us in circles. We would forever chase after one another despite the heights, the difference, the age, the society, our own mentalities…  
  
For all that it was worth, this wasn't love. It couldn't be.  
  
I had to accept this fate. I didn't know why or when or how this came about, but I knew that I had to.  
  
It simply wasn't fair.  
  
I wanted to return to myself and here I was floating away within myself.  
  
Almost to the point of not finding him: This person named Edward.  
  
And yet those eyes were looking at me. I couldn't distinguish the flow of affection floating in or out of them. But he was reaching out to touch me with those gloves.  
  
To burn me from the inside out. To give my punishment for trying to bring up my mother from the dead. For killing my brother's body and for cutting off my own arm.  
  
He wanted to punish me not because he wanted to, but because I wanted him to tell me what the hell was going on.  
  
Why were people choosing death over life?  
  
I couldn't understand.  
  
I was fighting so much to live and no matter how bad it got, I still persisted.  
  
"Why?" was all I said in that single look of defiance.  
  
When I finally looked up to those eyes that always regarded me at a distance even though he stood right before me. Even closer than my brother ever could.  
  
I didn't know what he would answer.  
  
Ethical, mental, physical, moral…  
  
What did he understand? How the hell could he understand me when I didn't want to understand him anymore…  
  
In a tone of slight admiration, desperation, and melancholy, he told me, "You have your brother."  
  
You have your support. That's what he meant.  
  
That's what everyone wanted but could never get in their weakness.  
  
He wanted that from me and I didn't know if I could give it to him. I had no answers more than he had any assignments for me to fulfill…  
  
It was then that I understood his disappointment.  
  
I hated those eyes.  
  
Because they looked like my own…  
  
A long, long time ago.  
  
As I turned to leave, he grabbed my arm and his eyes gave me a hateful, loving look.  
  
I wanted to get away from him, but I knew that would never happen. A person could never escape from themselves.  
  
He burned me into his core.  
  
And I assimilated him into my mind.  
  
There was no such thing as equivalence for suffering or affection.  
  
What more for the symbiotic relationship of both?  
  
Equivalent trade, indeed…  
  
I wondered if this was the only price we'd pay to the world and to each other…  
  
I didn't think so.  
  
Owari.  
  
--  
  
author's notes: I wanted to do a story about Edward and the Colonel because I thought it would be interesting. But seeing as I don't know very much of the story…I thought that this would be sufficient with a lot of questions that I've been thinking about and with a very simplified plot, yet condensed tone. 


End file.
